Pete Seeger, 94

[GenuineRisk]

Originally Posted by Kasept

Woody Guthrie was angry. Pete Seeger was concerned.

I respectfully disagree and say they were both pretty angry, but it wasn't a general, unshaped anger; it was a specific anger and it was always about very real injustices.

"Don't you wish love - only love - could save this world from disaster?
Lo-ove... - only love - could save this world from disaster?
Don't you wish love could end the confusion,... or is it just one more illusion?
Oh-oh Pacem in Teris, Mir, Shanti, Salaam, Heiwa!

Well, if you want to have great love,... you've got to have great anger.
I-if you want to have great love,... you've got to have great anger!
When I see innocent folks shot down,... you just want me 'shake my head and frown.
Oh-oh Pacem in Teris, Mir, Shanti, Salaam, Heiwa! "
("Letter to Eve")

The gorgeous thing about folk in its heyday (and I grew up listening to it because my dad was a child of the 60's and loved it), was the rage against the system that was couched within upbeat melodies and harmonies. I think a lot of contemporary folk is more introspective, which is fine, but makes it less powerful.

"Where Have All the Flowers Gone" is an incredibly bitter song about war destroying the lives of the young, but it's sung as sweetly and simply as the lullabies the mothers of the young men sent to die sang to them when they were babies. It makes me tear up just thinking about it.

Which, of course, is not to say that all of his songs were angry, but that he channeled his anger into some great anthems for the working man. As did Woody Guthrie, too, of course.